


The Lady and the Queen

by Dupond_et_Dupont



Series: The five of us [1]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Everybody Lives, F/F, Fluff, Introspection, Miranda Lives, Multi, OT3, OT5, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-04
Updated: 2017-04-04
Packaged: 2018-10-14 22:17:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10545254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dupond_et_Dupont/pseuds/Dupond_et_Dupont
Summary: Miranda loved men, of that she was certain.She never took the time to ask herself about women. Madi changed that.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Français available: [The Lady and the Queen](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12900180) by [Dupond_et_Dupont](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dupond_et_Dupont/pseuds/Dupond_et_Dupont)



> So. This is my first fic on Black Sails; I wrote it weeks ago, but because English isn’t my native language, it took me a long time to edit. (Because it’s also my first fic in English, so… be nice with me?) You now understand why I didn’t take into account some things (like Eleanor’s death, even if it’s not very important here).   
> It’s an AU where Miranda is alive. So just imagine she wasn’t shot in the head at the end of season 2 but elsewhere and she wasn’t exposed to the stoning. Instead she was sent with Abigail to Savannah, where she spent month healing while James thought her dead.   
> But at the end, everybody gets back together, and it’s an OT5. I have a lot of ideas about them, and I may write more, of how they get together and all, but today is about Madi and Miranda. 
> 
> That said I would like to say a BIG THANKS to Mapped and Phalangine, who were amazing to correct this text. Seriously, this text wouldn’t be posted if they weren’t here. You did an excellent job! <3

Miranda loved men, of that she was certain.

Some wives were devoted solely to their husbands, but Miranda had known from the beginning that such singular devotion was not for her. The idea of marrying just one man had made her cringe until she had met Thomas. Sweet Thomas, the thought of cheating on him would have torn her apart. Fortunately, she never had to make such a choice.

Her scandalous reputation meant there were always some men around her, hoping to see if the rumors were true.

She either gladly confirmed their hope, or she extinguished it.

Miranda never asked herself about women. After all, her husband liked men, too, and they talked more about their mutual attraction to men than Thomas’ attraction to Miranda. And she didn’t know any women who loved women the way she loved men.

Looking back, maybe she just hadn’t noticed these women.

“Eleanor Guthrie had an affair with a woman?” she asked, stunned.

She hadn’t caught the beginning of the conversation, so she didn’t know why James and John were suddenly talking about Miss Guthrie. She had vanished after the war; no one had heard from her.

“Yes,” answered James, keeping his eyes on the shirt he was mending. “Max was committed to her. I never knew if Eleanor saw her as more than just a who— a prostitute.”

“I didn’t know you were so well-informed about Miss Guthrie’s love life,” teased Silver from the other side of room, his legs propped up on a chair, a drink in hand.

“She was one of my main partners back then. Knowing these things was power, not gossip.”

Silver raised an eyebrow.

“It was Mr. Gates who kept wanting to tell me these things,” James conceded, cutting the thread with his teeth.

“Why wouldn’t she be as committed to Max as Max was to her?” asked Madi. Like Silver, she wasn’t doing anything in particular, only sipping her drink while Miranda cooked. “Maybe this is where you should start if you’re looking for Eleanor.”

Miranda added the potatoes to the soup. So that was why they were talking about Miss Guthrie. She knew they weren’t really looking for her; they were merely enjoying the speculation. Neither John nor James wanted to have contact with their former associate anymore, or with anyone else related to Nassau.

“The thing is,” said James, putting away his finished work, “I’m not sure Eleanor was attracted to women. This is how I think it happened: she had once again fucked up with Vane and someone must have thought it couldn’t carry on this way, because a pissed-off Vane was a pain in the ass, so this someone brought Eleanor to the brothel and said, ‘Look. Sex for money, and no trouble,’ and there they were.”

As he was talking, James had got up and come up to Miranda. He leaned towards the stew, inhaling the steam with an approving hum, his hand lightly brushing Miranda’s elbow in the process.

Behind them, Madi made a disapproving noise. “This is nonsense.”

James and Miranda turned to see Madi rolling her eyes. John was looking at her with an eyebrow lifted.

“How would you know about it?” asked Silver.

“I grew up with Eleanor.”

Without saying anything more, she took the bucket Miranda had emptied and left for the garden. The two men stared at each other, puzzled. For minutes Miranda searched in vain for an excuse to follow her, but her mind was blank.

There was more to say.

 

 

 

 

“What was your childhood like?”

It was late; night had fallen an hour earlier. Miranda hadn’t planned to stay long at Madi’s, but the conversation had drifted toward intimate topics, fueled by the intimacy of the dark, and Miranda had found herself reluctant to leave. She knew Thomas might be waiting for her– John and James were back at sea– but she couldn’t just retire as she asked the question Miranda had been obsessed with for weeks.

Madi didn’t answer right away, her eyebrows creased lightly.

“I don’t recall a lot of my time in Nassau. I have more memories of when we settled with my mother, with the Maroons. It was difficult at first, but I suppose I had an easy childhood in the end. I was more blessed than my mother or many former slaves.”

Miranda wanted to hold Madi’s hand, but the Queen was wearing her dignified face, so Miranda kept for herself her wrath against the injustice of the world. Her life had been a privileged one back in London, and even if all of their properties had been ripped from them because of their choices, they had possessed those properties at first only because of their birth.

“What do you recall from your time in Nassau?” she inquired instead.

Madi’s dignified expression slipped, replaced by a mischievous smile. A glimpse of white teeth flashed in the light of the only candle. “You want me to talk about Eleanor.”

Miranda sighed but found herself grinning, too. “I used to be more subtle once upon a time.”

“Men are easy to fool, but I can see past you.”

Miranda stayed still, wondering how much Madi could see.

“We played together,” Madi murmured . “Eleanor was a little older than me, maybe by a year or two, so I followed her more often than not. I don’t know if she was aware of her position of… superiority. I was. My mother didn’t let me forget. A lot could depend on it. But nevertheless our relationship was not without its fun moments. I remember once in particular we came home messy with dirt and grass. I don’t recall what we had done, only that we couldn’t stop laughing. All the time my mother bathed us, even as she was telling us off, we couldn’t stop. This is one of my more vivid memories.”

She fell silent for a while, staring into space, then she brought her gaze back to Miranda and declared with a steady voice, “That, and the times we kissed.”

Miranda’s heart missed a beat. “Excuse me?”

“Yes, we did that often. Eleanor called it _practice._ She wanted to be ready when the boys came.”

“I thought you were young when you fled Nassau.”

“I was. They were innocent kisses.”

She had a fond smile on her lips, warming all her face.  

Miranda thought with disappointment she was too old to ask for practice.

“Don’t tell that to John. I would never hear the end of it.”

Miranda gave her a reassuring smile. John Silver was the very last man she wanted to talk to right now. In fact, she didn’t want to talk to any of her men. It was stupid; it would be much easier to ask James or Thomas, or even John, how they had realized they were attracted to women and men. But it felt silly. Wasn’t she a little too old to think about it now?

She went home with a warm feeling in her chest. She didn’t know yet what to do with it, so she was glad Thomas was asleep when she entered their bedroom. Thomas had always been good at guessing her mood – they were so alike – and he had started to catch up with the ten missing years. (When they had found him in Savannah, they had been strangers to each other. Thomas no longer seemed to have a place in the understanding James and Miranda now shared, the two of them having been through hell together in his absence. But she had been wrong; she had underestimated Thomas’ ability to adapt. A few months later, he had learned to know this new Miranda and to love her.)

Miranda liked Madi very much. It wasn’t new. Of course it wasn’t new. Love just didn’t strike without warning. She had seen it coming for months now, her joy every time she saw her, the compulsion that brought her to Madi’s home at least twice a day, the need always to know more about her.

She was just so used to being proactive in her relationships, flirting, leading the dance, feeling the way men yearned for her, that she hadn’t been aware she could fall in love without all of these things.

But she could and she was.

And as easily as she had accepted she could love more than one man, she accepted she could love women.

She fell asleep with a smile on her lips.

 

 

 

 

Their relationships were more complex than back in London. Not complex as in complicated and difficult, but complex as in ‘with a lot of ramifications’.

It wasn’t two becoming three. It was five... staying five. James was the centre of them. There were James, Thomas and her on the one hand, split apart and brought back together, alive when they didn’t believe it possible anymore. On the other hand, there were James, John and Madi, young in their relationship but so full of passion (and strength and anger).

She didn’t think there was anything between John and Thomas; they appreciated each other’s company, she was sure, but they didn’t seem inclined to move their relationship to another level. She was certain James could persuade them to sleep together if he wished, but he didn’t seem to want that either.

Thomas and Madi truly liked each other. They spent whole evenings with Miranda, chatting about politics and great men, literature and history. When it came to such discourse, they had a lot more stamina than Miranda, and she often went to bed whilst the two of them were still talking. (For this reason, she preferred when James’ ship was back from its voyages: she could take her lover to sleep and let Thomas and Madi remake the world.) Thomas had read more books than Madi, but the young queen had more experience than he in a lot of matters– governing, slavery, pirates– and she proved him wrong more often than not. Thomas liked that, but Miranda didn’t think he could ever make Madi one of his lovers.

“I tell myself my feelings for men and women are the same, but except for you, I find myself drawn to men much more often than women,” he had said one day, a very long time ago.

He seemed to have been right about himself. Every time he felt something for someone, it was for a man. The couple of lovers he had had before James had also been men.

So, it wasn’t something to set aside totally, but it was really quite unlikely. She saw how Thomas acted with Madi, and it wasn’t love. Not that kind of love, anyway.

Damn it was complex.

She decided to stop wondering about the others. It wasn’t their business.

Well, it sort of was, but not right now. Afterwards, maybe. When she and Madi were happily in love with each other. When their men couldn’t really say anything more about it anyway.

It was Silver who made her change her mind.

Not by his own making, in his defence.

For the most part, she knew how Thomas and James would react to her being in a relationship with Madi. However, she wasn’t sure what Silver would think about it. But she was a wise woman. She could prepare him for when– if? –it happened. (Some days, she was pretty confident about where her relationship with Madi was going; other days, she was at a loss with her feelings. She hadn’t pursued anyone for a very long time.)

She didn’t plan anything.

James and John had come back two days ago, and it was meant to be a short stop. They would probably be gone the next day, or the one after that if the weather stayed bad. She was almost soaked, having been caught in the heavy rain as she was coming back from teaching the children of the village. Bent double to shield her books from the rain, she ran to Madi’s.

The house Madi shared with Silver was in the centre of the village, near her people, where they could find her at any time. The public place where she granted audiences and presided over judgments was close to it.

Miranda stepped in without knocking. This was in part because she didn’t want to get any wetter, but also because she already felt at home at Madi’s.

Madi and Silver weren’t in the main room. Miranda put her books on the table and started to take off her drenched garments.

A bang came from the bedroom, and Miranda identified the noise of Silver’s crutch.

“It’s me!” she yelled before an angry pirate could burst out, blade in hand.

“Oh,” she heard Silver’s voice answer, then a puff like someone dropping himself into a bed. “You can come in. We’re dressed,” he added after a little silence.

“ _I_ won’t be, shortly,” Miranda answered with a note of playfulness in her voice.

“I beg your pardon?” Silver blurted .

She took off her dress as she saw a pile of clothes on the chest of drawers. It was a mixture of Silver and Madi’s wardrobe, and she freely chose a skirt and a shirt.

“I got caught in the rain,” she explained, before at last stepping into their bedroom.

Madi and John were on the bed– fully dressed as he had said– their faces relaxed. One of Silver’s hands was on Madi’s knee, and Madi’s head was on Silver’s shoulder. Their touch did not have any sexual intent, and Miranda wondered: were the Maroon Queen and the Pirate King cuddling in the middle of the afternoon? Some would find this hilarious; Miranda only felt her heart melting a little more.

“Have you ever heard how Thomas and I met James?” she asked, because it was the right time for this.

“Flint was Thomas’ naval liaison, wasn’t he?” answered John as though this topic of conversation were normal.

“You never told us this from your point of view, though,” completed Madi and Miranda smiled at her because it was all she needed.

She didn’t sit; she knew there was a chair somewhere in the room, but she wished to be standing up for this.

“I started all of this. Because James was a handsome man and it was great fun to fool around with him. I didn’t plan to fall in love with him, and certainly not that fast. However, it was the first time my husband shared my feelings. It was quite peculiar at first, mainly because we didn’t know if James was attracted to men. We didn’t know either if he could be involved in a relationship with two people, a concern which is– I know– a little ridiculous in hindsight.”

Madi and Silver laughed lightly.

“But it was hard for me because I couldn’t do a lot about it. Of course, I stifled James’ doubts about how Thomas would see our relationship, but I couldn’t do anything to help Thomas. And there I was, enjoying our affair, while Thomas struggled with his feelings.”

“You felt guilty,” stated Madi with a look full of compassion.

“Well, I was but I am a pragmatic woman. I try to find happiness where I can. And then of course, James was attracted to men and to Thomas, and he wasn’t bothered by the idea of a relationship with a married couple. But at first I knew none of this.”

Miranda took a deep breath, sinking back into her memories of those times. “When Thomas kissed James… Their first kiss in front of me, their first ever kiss... I didn’t know anymore where I stood. I knew James held Thomas in great esteem, and I knew Thomas’ feelings towards him, but their relationship was now real, and it was altogether something else. I was happy for them, truly. I didn’t dare to hope for that before, but… We didn’t talk right after about our relationship, our three-person relationship. I let them be. I didn’t dare voice my feelings for a week because, as you know… The beginning of a relationship is… It’s like a honeymoon. I didn’t want to ruin it. But one afternoon- I think it was a Sunday, the Sunday after their kiss- James came to find me. ‘Thomas is reading,’ he told me, and he just took my hand, kissed it and held me close. ‘You love Thomas,’ he said to me after a silence, and it truly was a discovery for him. You see, he thought it was a marriage of convenience. Of course, he saw that we cared deeply for each other. But not like that. And suddenly, he discovered that one could love two people with one’s whole heart. And so that is how I understood his love for me was still there."

Miranda sighed with a soft smile. It was probably one of her fondest memories. Knowing the two men she loved not only loved her back, but also loved each other. She looked at Silver, wondering if he felt the same thing, if he was sometimes stunned by the luck he had. She wasn’t sure. Everyone was different.

She shook herself. It wasn’t why she was here today. She looked at Madi and braced herself.

"But it’s not always like that. Thomas and I are very similar, and maybe it just makes sense that we ended up falling in love with the same person. But I had affairs before meeting James, and Thomas also had a few. Understanding the love your partner feels for someone else but not feeling it yourself is also valid. You don’t always have to love— to like is quite sufficient.”

A silence fell after her words. She had finished her story; it was up to them to understand her meaning now. Silver shifted a little before he cautiously jested, “Are you trying to tell us, Mrs. Barlow, that you like us?”

Miranda looked directly into Silver’s blue eyes. “You already know I respect you, especially for all you did for James when I wasn’t there. But yes, it seems I also like you.”

Madi had dropped John’s hand and was now standing, looking intensely at Miranda.

“Well,” said Silver, with a mischievous smile, “as I said a long time ago to your lover, I’m a hard man not to like.”

But the impish words were lost as Madi stepped in front of them. Here more than ever, she had the stature of a queen, and Miranda felt somewhat lost in front of such majesty. She had dealt with powerful men in London, charming them with the same ease she flirted with servants. She had seen as many powerful women in her life, women with more wealth than Madi could ever see, with more people at their service than there were men on this island. But Madi was a queen not because of the power she had, but because of the responsibility she bore. She had known since she was a child what her duties would be, and she dealt with them with her head held high.

But they were only the three of them in this room; she didn’t need to be her queenly self right now.

Miranda understood when Madi put her hands on her cheeks.

This posture wasn’t the strength of a queen taking up her responsibilities.

It was the expression of a woman plucking up courage.

Their lips met softly.

Miranda loved first kisses. First kisses were a discovery. Unpredictable and awkward, hesitant or bold, gentle or hungry with repressed lust. It might be for this reason she had liked having so many lovers back in London.

Madi’s kiss was as similar and as different as any other kiss. She was soft, but as soon as she saw she hadn’t misunderstood Miranda’s intentions, her lips became firmer; she pressed their mouths together, her thumbs stroking her cheekbones.

The kiss was short. The staring was not. It had been a long time since Miranda got lost in the contemplation of another face. It had been hard to look at James when they were in Nassau, and she hadn’t allowed herself to stare at Thomas too strongly when she saw that her gaze made him uncomfortable.

But in this moment, she was staring at Madi, and she couldn’t look away. Madi was splendid, her dark skin accentuating her high cheekbones, her strong lips slowly stretching into a smile. She was so young, but instead of feeling the weight of years, Miranda felt suddenly as young as she, transported back to the first time she had kissed a man at one of her father’s parties.

She felt so good and full of vigour.

“Well, I hadn’t expected that,” said a voice from the bed.

Miranda kept herself from rolling her eyes. She had too often heard James saying Silver never knew when to shut up. She agreed now. But Madi only smiled softly before turning to face her husband.

“You had not been here to acknowledge these changes.”

“Is that a reproach?” Silver asked, tensing. “Someone had to go pirating, and it’s unsafe to leave Flint all alone in this.”

“No, not a reproach at all. If you had been here the whole time, I don’t know if any of this could have happened.”

Miranda didn’t know either. Would she have fallen in love with Madi if James and John had been here? She wasn’t sure; it seemed she was meant to be drawn to Madi, but there was only a certain number of hours in a day. She didn’t know if she would have spent those long evenings with Madi. Miranda had seen situations where people might have lived beautiful love stories but had been thwarted by the tiniest, most insignificant reasons.

“And that would have been a shame,” Silver continued slowly, his eyes narrowed.

“Yes.” Madi’s voice contained no hesitation.

“I see,”the pirate stated.

He was playing with one of his rings, his gaze floating between Madi and Miranda, his eyebrows furrowed a little. And then a smile spread across his face and he looked at Miranda. Understanding passed between them. There wasn’t love between them, but they liked each other and most importantly they loved the same person. It was that feeling Miranda wanted him to understand.

“You want me to go.” He understood suddenly after he’d stared at them for some time.

“Yes.”

“It’s all new for the two of us; we’ve things to discuss,” Miranda added.

“Yeah, yeah, _discuss,_ ” he gushed while taking his crutch and standing up. “I get what you said, honeymoon and all. I’m going to Thomas’ and James’.”

“Thank you,” Madi said softly.

He stopped when he passed by Madi, pressing his lips against her cheek. Madi turned her head to kiss him near his mouth. Then, Silver patted Miranda on her shoulder before reaching for the door.

“John,” Miranda called before he was gone. “I would like to tell Thomas all of this myself.”

He spun round, looking at her with his piercing gaze. “And as I can’t tell James without Thomas knowing…”

“We’ll inform him,” Madi supplied.

“Inform him?” A smile played on his lips. “Will you write them a letter, with a seal and all?”

This time, Miranda didn’t hide her eye rolling.

“I’m _sorry_ ,” Silver stressed. “I don’t know how all of this works!”

“Well. It works well,” Miranda affirmed.

Silver opened his mouth before closing it. An exasperated look passed over his face before vanishing, replaced by a fond smile. Miranda tilted her head to see that Madi was watching her, too, a twin smile on her lips.

“Yes,” Silver and Madi said at the same time.

Miranda didn’t hear the door being closed as Madi took her face between her hands once more and kissed her.

**Author's Note:**

> Heyy, don't hesitate to leave a comment if you liked! :D And maybe tell me if you like the idea of having more of the five of them. I really want to write about OT5 dynamics!


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